'2012'

John Cusack in '2012'

John Cusack in '2012'

John Cusack in '2012'

roger mooreOrlando Sentinel

Nothing like a dandy evening's apocalypse to take the edge off recession, unemployment, Afghanistan and Glenn Beck. With "2012," Roland "Day After Tomorrow" Emmerich serves up World's End 4.0, with cataclysmic effects showcasing what volcanoes, tidal waves and earthquakes will do once that fabled Mayan calendar runs out on 12-21-12.

Don't mull over the fact that the Mayans couldn't wait and ended their world centuries early, the "If the Mayans were so smart, how come their civilization ended" argument. And try not to dwell on the general hopelessness this movie engenders. It's Apocalypse Three Years From Now as simple spectacle  with moments of humor and humanity tucked into a downbeat " Roland Emmerich Presents: Disaster Movie's Greatest Hits."

There's the volcanic inferno of "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano," the earthquakes of "Earthquake" and the cruise ship staring down a tidal wave (and losing) of "The Poseidon Adventure."

Seismic events all over the planet concern a government geologist (Chiwitel Ejiofor). "Earth crust displacement" is coming. The continents will shift and the world, "as we know it," will end. The president (Danny Glover) mobilizes the G-8 nations to act. Years of secret labor ensue, with nobody knowing about it but a select few. Well, and nutty conspiracy buff Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson, well-cast). He spills the beans online and on his pirate radio station. But sometime science writer, now limo-driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) isn't buying.

"Nobody could keep a secret that big."

Wanna bet?

A trip with his kids to Yellowstone, "the world's largest (potential) super volcano" changes Jackson's mind. And as Charlie's predictions, based on end-days prophecies from Mayan and other ancient cultures, start to come true, Jackson goes on a made dash to rescue his estranged wife (Amanda Peet) and kids from soon-to-be-sea-floor Los Angeles and take them somewhere that Charlie promises that "the government" is up to something.

"When they tell you not to panic," Jackson screams, once he's seen the light, "that's when you run!"

Emmerich packs his script with too many characters to keep track of easily. Aged musicians on the cruise ship (George Segal and Blu Mankuma), scattered scientists, a Russian billionaire (Zlatko Buric), the novice Buddhist monk, the White House team (Thandie Newton is the president's art-expert daughter, Oliver Platt is a cold-hearted chief of staff), all face the end their own way. Moments of pathos pop up in the usual places  noble sacrifice, people waiting too long to mend fences with doomed relatives, a small dog in jeopardy.

What's missing here is someone to root against  the monster in Emmerich's "Godzilla," the Global Warming denying White House of "Day After Tomorrow," the aliens of "Independence Day." Are we meant to applaud when skyscrapers topple and ships capsize, with tiny digital faceless bodies plummeting into the void? You make the disaster this real and it's not entertaining or chilling. Like "Deep Impact," another movie with a black president presiding over the end of time, it's more depressing than entertaining.

The cast, however, play this as if their next paycheck depended on it. Cusack & Co. sell the cataclysm unfolding in the rear view mirror of an RV, through the windows of a small plane or in the case of Ol' Charlie Frost  that glint in his eyes as Yellowstone erupts, the wonder and fear and utter satisfaction of a crack-pot who can say, with smug conviction, "Toldya so!"